Energy Storage

Sales of hybrid bus drive systems in China and contributions from a stop-start idle elimination system for autos in Europe and various backup power applications have enabled Maxwell to achieve sustainable year over year growth.

A team of scientists has found a cleverly designed double-walled nanostructure that lasts more than 6,000 cycles, far more than needed by electric vehicles or mobile electronics.

In 2022, over 128 million electric vehicles will be made, mainly two wheelers, according to the IDTechEx report, Electric Vehicles 2012-2022. That means over $260 billion dollars of business in our estimations, even at ex-factory prices, with cars being under 50% of that figure.

EVS26 in Los Angeles this month reminded one of the children's chant, "When she was good she was very, very good but when she was bad she was awful". The networking opportunities were superb, the welcoming reception and the Gala Dinner being truly memorable.

So far, most supercapacitors use organic electrolytes because they give higher cell voltage and other benefits, though these electrolytes do have pollution and fire issues in large capacitor constructions in some cases. For example, Japanese manufacturers have agreed to shun the dangerous chemical acetonitrile, the electrolyte used by Maxwell Technologies in the USA but using aqueous propylene carbonate means the lower temeprature limit of their supercapacitors is around minus 25C meaning they cannot be used for starting very cold vehicles.

Electrochemical Double Layer Capacitors EDLCs are known by many other names but EDLC is the most popular on search engines.

Energy harvesting ICs can convert an appropriate transducer's output into an electric current for a battery charger device.

This article shares some of the research carried out for the new IDTechEx report, Electrochemical Double Layer Capacitors 2013-2023.

Electric Futures London took place 27 April with about 40 people present. Its focus was rail and bus electrification.

Less than 3 weeks remain before the 4th instalment of the IDTechEx European conference on energy harvesting, WSN and RTLS, taking place in Berlin on the 15th and 16th of May. Just before the event opens its doors to its attendees, Dr Harry Zervos, technology analyst with IDTechEx, interviewed some of the main speakers on their involvement with energy harvesting and wireless sensing and the reasons why their integration is becoming increasingly important in a wide range of applications.

As the potential for the further improvement of lithium-ion batteries is nearly exhausted, experts are now turning to a new and promising power storage device: lithium-sulfur batteries.

3M has a new battery innovation that could enable gadgets to run for 40 percent longer once charged.

CAP-XX Limited a leading developer of thin, prismatic supercapacitors (also known as ultracapacitors or EDLC), announced that it has developed a supercapacitor module which supplies the cranking current to start the engine in Stop-Start vehicles (also known as start-stop, idle-stop, or micro-hybrid vehicles), reducing wear on the battery and eliminating the need for larger, more expensive ones.

Chemists have now developed a way to make porous metal films with up to 1,000 times the electrical conductivity offered by previous methods.

Blue Spark's Thin, Flexible Batteries Light Up Interactive Printed Media Demonstrator at Printed Electronics Europe 2012.

Researchers at UCLA have used a standard LightScribe DVD optical drive to produce electrodes composed of an expanded network of graphene — a one-atom-thick layer of graphitic carbon — that shows excellent mechanical and electrical properties as well as exceptionally high surface area.

Most green technologies are not so green on closer examination.

The parties announce an ecosystem for integrated printed electronics products and will together provide all the key technology elements for complete PE products aimed at the consumer, security and novelty markets.